Nascar News

by Mark Silva

Brian Williams already has gotten a lot of public mileage out of his private time with President Barack Obama, in preparation for a day-in-the-life of the president series that NBC News will air this week, Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

The anchorman got the president to walk his Supreme Court nominee back from the remark she made about the relative wisdom of Latino women, as compared with white men. He got the president to say that he's not interested in the government owning GM. -- just a 60 percent stake, for now.

"Our viewers will see a view of the White House never televised before,'' Williims says of his program, Inside the Obama White House. "Senior staff, the president himself, the first lady and yes... Bo will make an appearance with us on television.''

Williams tells of a president who is not confined to the Oval Office, who walks from study to study dropping in on sessions, popping m&m's for snacks along the way.

"We had something like 20 camera crews....we have something like 150 hours of video tape,'' he says, and that's after a day in the White House last week, which Williams will follow up with another interview of Obama on Tuesday. "e're going through all of this to distill it down to two hours.

Williams also got a cheeseburger out of the deal - joining the president in his outing for a take-out pickup of burgers at a Five Guys in Washington.

Williams also asked Obama about the early part of his day that he hadn't seen: "I got my workout in,'' Obama said, "saw the girls off to school... always eat a hearty breakfast.''

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

This is a breaking story about which I'll have more to say in a column next week, but today the National Governors' Association announced that 46 states and the District of Columbia have joined a coalition in favor of common academic standards. Only South Carolina, Alaska, Missouri, and Texas have held back. From the NGA press release:

By signing on to the common core state standards initiative, governors and state commissioners of education across the country are committing to joining a state-led process to develop a common core of state standards in English language arts and mathematics for grades K-12. These standards will be research and evidence-based, internationally benchmarked, aligned with college and work expectations and include rigorous content and skills.

The caveat here is that once the coalition develops the standards, each state will be able to choose whether or not it will actually adhere to them. Unless the federal government provides some sticks and carrots, there will be little incentive for politicians from low-performing states, like Mississippi, to enact the standards. After all, doing so would reveal just how little those states' school children are actually learning, and to what a pitifully low standard they've been held.

But this is still big news. It wasn't that long ago that proponents of common standards believed the best they could hope for were regional standards. In other words, instead of our current system of 50 different state curricula, groups of states would band together and agree to share one system. But in recent months, the political calculus has shifted considerably, with national standards emerging as education reform common ground between teachers' unions and some of their opponents within the Democratic coalition -- those who broadly support teacher merit pay, an expansion of charter schools and vouchers, and alternative-certification programs for teachers. All of these folks can agree, seemingly, that the system would benefit from some regularization.

Of course, anti-testing advocates are likely to be quite skeptical of this move, which has the potential to lead to national assessments. At this early stage, though, it is totally unclear whether common assessments would even be an outgrowth of common standards.

--Dana Goldstein

In another nearly orgasmic tribute to The One, in its Arts section The New York Times published a May 30 story buoyantly jubilant over the fact that Obama's face "rules the web." The story is in glee over how the Obammessiah's portrait fills the web and that some folks are even making a bit of cash off the deal.

To my mind, though, the amusing thing about the piece is that, if read closely, it appears that only schlocky Obama art can bring any sales for any serious artistic efforts are going unsold. I don?"t know what that says about Obama art aficionados, but there you have it. Obama schlock rules.

The first Obamanist cum arteeste the piece reveals to us is one Mimi Torchia Boothby of Seattle who was so inspired by The One that she painted a "contemplative, sun-splashed portrait" of Obama that she is now selling on the web. And she was excited that a whole 24 takers was dredged up.

Sadly, there is no sense of proportion about this whole phenomenon and there just is no real effort to place this phenomenon in any historical perspective. Obama is ranked with John F. Kennedy in the excitement for his portrait but, there is no sense that the Times understands that Kennedy's portrait didn't become ubiquitous until his assassination. Yes there were many portraits of him just after he got elected, but his assassination spurred that displaying of his image a lot more than his mere election. On the other hand, Obama's portrait is everywhere despite his relative lack of accomplishment as president.

There is no discussion of other presidents that enjoyed popularity in portraiture. George Washington was hugely popular for generations of Americans including those first American voters of the late 1700s. Just about every American had a portrait of Washington somewhere. Abraham Lincoln was also everywhere in his day and after and was one of the most photographed president's of his era and on into the next. Teddy Roosevelt was the people's president and found great popularity as a subject of portraits. Original images of Teddy are still easy to find on ebay or in antique stores. In his turn, Franklin Roosevelt's image became popular everywhere, as well. But does the Times talk of any of this? Nope.

Finally, one might think that a thoughtful piece on the widespread appearance of Obama's portrait might include some words of caution, some perspective, or some effort to look deeper into the matter. But, I guess that is far too introspective for the Times, sadly. No effort was made to make this piece a serious treatment of the matter.

What does it say, for instance, about people so taken by this man even though he has yet to actually achieve any major effort (shy of getting elected, no mean feat, to be sure), has not faced any significant challenge or emergency, and has yet to be proven to have succeeded in his goals?

But, let?"s not worry about reality, shall we? Unfortunately, it's all about the slavish sycophancy for The One as opposed to any serious treatment of the subject.

Sigh.

So John Cole has pretty much addressed this, but last week Jonathan Chait criticized me and others for referring to Jeffrey Rosen's piece on Sonia Sotomayor as "gossip".

"Gossip" is an effective label for those who wish to denigrate Rosen's reporting or the reputation of TNR, but it's an inaccurate one. Gossip is unverified information. Gossip is something you hear all the time--say, Senator X mistreats his staff. No serious publication can pass off gossip as reporting. However, if you actually speak with the principals firsthand--you interview staffers for Senator X who report that he mistreats them--then what you have is reporting. That's what Jeff did. He spoke first-hand with several of Sotomayor's former clerks, who provided a mixed picture. Unsurprisingly, they declined to put their names on the record, but that's utterly standard for people who are speaking in unflattering terms about people they worked with or for.

Chait is one of my favorite writers on the interwebs, but this is less than persuasive. A big publication printing gossip doesn't change the definition of gossip. The issue isn't that the information was "unverified" as in, no one told Rosen these things, it's that it was objectively unverifiable, as in, assertions about Sotomayor's intelligence are unprovable. Rosen, as a well-respected legal expert, could have made that argument himself in some form, but he didn't, possibly because he wanted to present it as an "unbiased" observation. But since the source is anonymous, there's no way to judge the individual's motivations or perspective. There's reason to give people anonymity under certain circumstances to relay unpleasant information about a colleague or a superior, but not when that information can't be verified. Anonymous, unverifiable information is gossip.

Most oddly, Chait suggests I, along with others have some sort of agenda against the New Republic. I can only speak for myself, but in my many posts on Sotomayor and Rosen, I didn't say anything about the New Republic except that to identify the publication Rosen had been writing in.?

-- A. Serwer

As president of General Motors when Eisenhower tapped him to become Secretary of Defense in 1953, ?SEngine Charlie? Wilson voiced at his Senate confirmation hearing what was then the conventional view. When asked whether he could make a decision in the interest of the U.S. that was adverse to the interest of GM, he said he could.

Then he reassured them that such a conflict would never arise. ?SI cannot conceive of one because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country.?

Wilson was only slightly exaggerating. At the time, the fate of GM was inextricably linked to that of the nation. In 1953, GM was the world?"s biggest manufacturer, the symbol of U.S. economic might. It generated 3 percent of U.S. gross national product. GM?"s expansion in the 1950s was credited with stalling a business slump. It was also America?"s largest employer, with over 460,000 employees. Its blue-collar workers received (in today's dollars) $60 an hour that year in wages and benefits.

Today, Wal-Mart is America?"s largest employer, the majority of whose employees receive just over $10 an hour. And General Motors is filing for bankruptcy. Wilson?"s reassuring words in 1953 now have an ironic twist. There will be little difference between what is good for America and for GM because it is soon to be owned by U.S. taxpayers who have forked out more than $60 billion to buy it.

But why would U.S. taxpayers want to own today?"s GM?

The answer, after the jump.

--Robert Reich

MORE...

As I stated in the last update the Book,
WILL begin printing this month, June 2009 and I will have and begin signing, numbering and shipping the copies to those who ordered a signed/numbered copy THIS month, June 2009.
As for the process inwhich Barnes and Noble goes through in ordering books I cannot tell you at this point. I will tell you that Barnes and Noble has not once listed information correctly as is listed by Books In Print or Bowker Indentifiers.
I will receive the copies ordered directly from the printer when printing begins shortly and when that starts I will post it here for all to see as well as on the company web site at http://www.sinclairpublishingllc.com/ .
Once printing begins I will then post a link on the Company web site where the book can be ordered directly through Sinclair Publishing, Inc for anyone wanting to do so.
Again, let me make it clear, printing of the book WILL begin this month as will shipping of those signed/numbered copies ordered through this blog.

Copyright 2009 by Larry Sinclair/larrysinclair.org/larrysinclair-0926.blogspot.com/LarrySinclair0926.com and Larry SinclairBarackObama.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.